START will promote S. Texas' ports on land, sea, air

Updated 7:37 pm, Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Land. Sea. Air.

Those are the three words three ports are using to tell the world that South Texas can service all kinds of freight through a newly formed alliance called START. START stands for South Texas Alliance for Regional Trade.

The capabilities overlap, of course, especially as freight is moved from one mode of transportation to another at all three ports.

START's roots go back about two years ago when the heads of the three ports met to discuss how their communications staffs could work together better. The idea grew beyond that to where the ports as a whole will market their varying strengths as a regional package.

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The regional cooperation is an accomplishment in itself. San Antonio and Corpus Christi have been friendly and collaborative for decades. Corpus Christi is San Antonio's seaport, and Corpus Christi needs San Antonio's interstate highway and rail systems for distribution.

But San Antonio-Laredo relations sometimes were cold in the 1990s. Laredo didn't like San Antonio's rhetoric about a disappearing border as the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994. The border did not vanish, of course, and San Antonio-Laredo relations improved more than a decade ago.

START has much to offer when the three port's combined assets are considered.

Laredo is the biggest U.S. inland port, replete with warehousing, manufacturing and a giant truck/rail border crossing. Corpus Christi is home to the fifth-largest U.S. seaport, most of its freight related to food and energy. Port San Antonio is largely an aerospace industrial park that also operates a nascent air freight terminal and a railport that is growing quickly largely to supply drilling activities in the Eagle Ford Shale.

All three ports are foreign trade zones, which allow shippers to better manage their inventories and duty payments.

START begins at a fortunate moment because the Panama Canal is nearing completion of its widening, allowing larger container ships to pass. That potentially could increase seaport volumes in the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. eastern seaboard, said Jorge Canavati, Port San Antonio's international logistics vice president.

What will foreign manufacturers see if they look at South Texas's three ports? In addition to land, sea and air freight capacities, they will see access to cheap natural gas and access to Mexico's manufacturing plants.

That was the recent winning combination for an Austrian company, Voestalpine, which is investing $700 million and leasing 486 acres at Port Corpus Christi's La Quinta Trade Gateway. Half the steel Voestelapine will produce there will go to Mexican auto plants. The other half will go back to Austria, also for autos, said Port Corpus Christi consultant Tom Moore.

“They looked all over the world” but decided on South Texas, Moore said.

The three ports hope their combined assets can continue to draw investments and freight volumes.

“We don't really compete with each other,” said Bruce Miller, Port San Antonio president and CEO. “We can market ourselves better as a group.”